ACC 2001 - FSU Seminoles 2001 Season Preview

Young Cast Will Test Fsu's Ability To Stay In Fast Lane

It happened to the Montreal Canadiens in the early 1960s, the New York Yankees a few years later and to UCLA's men's basketball program in the mid-1970s.

Could Bobby Bowden's Florida State football team be the next institution to crash to earth?

Such a fall would generate more buzz than Skylab's ballyhooed descent from orbit in 1979, because the Seminoles have owned college football over the past decade and a half.

They have finished in the top five of the Associated Press poll for 14 consecutive seasons. They have won 10 or more games 14 straight times. They haven't lost at Doak Campbell Stadium since 1991. And Florida State has won at least a share of the Atlantic Coast Conference crown every year since joining the ACC in 1992.

"I never could have anticipated something like that," Bowden says of his team's success. "It's something that just built up and happened."

Yet, now, after three straight national championship game appearances, the Seminoles don't even poll among the top two college teams in Florida.

The Florida Gators and Miami Hurricanes enter the season first and second, respectively, in the AP preseason rankings, while FSU comes in sixth.

"We have the articles posted downstairs [in the locker room] right before we go out saying that we won't win the ACC this year, Florida's going to beat us, Georgia Tech is going to beat us," says junior Anquan Boldin. "Things like that we take as motivation."

The 10th-ranked Yellow Jackets, hailed as the strongest challengers for the Seminoles' ACC crown, venture into Tallahassee on Sept. 15.

"People would like to say the pressure is off," Bowden says. "The heck it is. We ain't lost out there [in Doak Campbell] since '91. Think we want to lose now? We've had 14 straight years of 10 or more wins, 14 straight years of top [fives], three national championship games. That's pressure. These kids don't want to be the first team that breaks that."

Bowden admits his team faces question marks at nearly every turn.

Having bid farewell to Heisman Trophy winner Chris Weinke, defensive end Jamal Reynolds and leading receiver Marvin "Snoop" Minnis -- among others -- FSU returns just five offensive and four defensive starters, the team's fewest in eight years.

Much of the attention focuses on the quarterback position, where redshirt freshman Chris Rix prepares for the Sept. 1 opener at Duke as the solid first-stringer, despite never taking a college snap.

Yet inexperience also characterizes the Seminoles' defensive unit.

Neither of the projected first-team outside linebackers, Kendyll Pope and Michael Boulware, have started a college game. Nor have cornerbacks Malcolm Tatum and Stanford Samuels or rover Abdual Howard.

The youthful exuberance showed throughout two-a-days, when crunching tackles from the defense gave rise to spirited celebrations.

The baby-faced Boulware, the brother of former FSU consensus All-American Peter Boulware, added 20 pounds to his 6-foot-3 frame and entered practice this month at 225 pounds.

"All we lack is the experience," the younger Boulware says. "There's a lot more pressure. I want to help the team out as much as I can. I don't want to be the weak link."

The 6-foot-2, 217-pound Pope epitomizes the defense. Like the rest of his young teammates, the sophomore has exhibited promise and talent between bouts of inconsistency.

Now, he steps into the weakside linebacker spot manned last year by playmaker Tommy Polley.

"It's difficult for a freshman, mentally and emotionally, to be at the level to compete on a consistent basis," Andrews says. "They may do it for a play or two and then they stumble. The biggest thing you see with Kendyll is he's not a freshman anymore.

"The confidence that he has now is so much better than it ever was. He knows what he's doing in his coverage and his run support. He anticipates plays better now."

The Seminoles' first two games, against Duke (0-11 in 2000) and UAB (7-4), should allow the defense to pick up some confidence heading into the team's Sept. 15 conference showdown at home against Georgia Tech.

UAB returns just six offensive starters from a unit that scored more than 21 points just once in 2000. The Blazers' defense, which features 10 returning starters, is another story, however.

That's because FSU's offense enters the season with more uncertainty than at any time in recent memory.

Entering his 26th season at Florida State, Bowden never has opened the season with a freshman quarterback.

The first week of two-a-days took a toll on Rix's supporting cast. Senior Otis Duhart, locked in a battle with Montrae Holland for the starting tight guard job, incurred a partial fracture of his right tibia and will be out for at least another five weeks.